Traditional telephony presents a problem for persons who are who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech-impaired (D-HOH-SI). Communication by telephone requires each party to a telephone call to be able to hear and/or speak to the other party on the call to communicate. For hearing or speech impaired persons, audio communication is difficult or impossible, making telephone communication difficult or impossible.
Early approaches to facilitating telecommunications for D-HOH-SI persons included text-based telecommunications relay service (TRS). Text-based TRS services allow a D-HOH-SI person to communicate with other people over an existing telecommunications network using devices capable of transmitting and receiving text characters over the telecommunications network. Such devices include the telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) and the teletypewriter (TTY). Text-based TRS services were well-suited to the bandwidth limitations of subscriber lines of the time. The bandwidth limitations of subscriber lines were also a limiting factor in the widespread use of video telephony.
The availability of affordable, high-speed packet-switched communications has led to the growth in the use of video relay services (VRS) by D-HOH-SI persons. Using VRS equipment, D-HOH-SI persons can place video calls to communicate between themselves and with hearing individuals using sign language. VRS equipment enables D-HOH-SI persons to talk to Hearing individuals via a sign language interpreter, who uses a conventional telephone at the same time to communicate with the party or parties with whom the D-HOH-SI person wants to communicate. The interpretation flow is normally within the same principal language, such as American Sign Language (ASL) to spoken English or spoken Spanish.
Recording of VRS calls presents a unique set of issues, especially in a corrections environment (e.g., prison, juvenile detention center, etc.) where certain calls are required be to recorded and other calls are prohibited from being recorded (such as a confidential/privileged call to an attorney or clergy). For hearing individuals, prisons typically include an audio announcement at the beginning of a call announcing that the call is being recorded. The announcement gives notice to the parties on the call that the call is being recorded before any conversation takes place. A hearing impaired person may not be able to hear or understand the audio announcement. A static video watermark indicating that the call is being recorded is used with video calls.
The decision to record a VRS call from or to a prison inmate is typically made by a person such as a security administrator at the prison. The security administrator determines whether a call is to be recorded based on the identity of the inmate and the number that is being called or from which a call is received. The security administrator consults a registry or database having records that indicate the telephone numbers for which calls are not to be recorded. Because a human is making the decisions by looking up records in a table, this can be a time consuming process that is prone to error. Furthermore, recording a phone call that is not supposed to be recorded can subject the administrator and/or the institution to civil and/or criminal liability. Also, evidence accrued from an unlawfully recorded call may end up being excluded at trial as being “fruit of the poison tree”. What is needed is an automated process that can reliably initiate recordings of VRS phone calls only when it is lawful to make such recordings, especially in a corrections environment with inmates who are hearing impaired.